BY RICHARD WATSON GILDER

Since ancient Time began
Ever on some great soul God
laid an infinite burden—­
The weight of all this world, the hopes
of man.
Conflict and pain, and fame
immortal are his guerdon!

And this the unfaltering token
Of him, the Deliverer—­what
though tempests beat,
Though all else fail, though bravest ranks
be broken,
He stands unscared, alone,
nor ever knows defeat

Such was that man of men;
And if are praised all virtues,
every fame
Most noble, highest, purest—­then,
ah! then,
Upleaps in every heart the
name none needs to name.

Ye who defeated, ’whelmed,
Betray the sacred cause, let
go the trust;
Sleep, weary, while the vessel drifts
unhelmed;
Here see in triumph rise the
hero from the dust!

All ye who fight forlorn
’Gainst fate and failure;
ye who proudly cope
With evil high enthroned; all ye who scorn
Life from Dishonor’s
hand, here take new heart of hope.

Here know how Victory borrows
For the brave soul a front
as of disaster,
And in the bannered East what glorious
morrows
For all the blackness of the
night speed surer, faster.

Know by this pillared sign
For what brief while the powers
of earth and hell
Can war against the spirit of truth divine,
Or can against the heroic
heart of man prevail.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] By permission of the publishers, Houghton,
Mifflin & Co.

* * * *
*

GEORGE WASHINGTON

From “Washington and the Generals of the
Revolution”

It is a truth, illustrated in daily experience, and
yet rarely noted or acted upon, that, in all that
concerns the appreciation of personal character or
ability, the instinctive impressions of a community
are quicker in their action, more profoundly appreciant,
and more reliable, than the intellectual perceptions
of the ablest men in the community. Upon all
those subjects that are of moral apprehension, society
seems to possess an intelligence of its own, infinitely
sensitive in its delicacy, and almost conclusive in
the certainty of its determinations; indirect, and
unconscious in its operation, yet unshunnable in sagacity,
and as strong and confident as nature itself.
The highest and finest qualities of human judgment
seem to be in commission among the nation, or the
race. It is by such a process, that whenever a
true hero appears among mankind, the recognition of
his character, by the general sense of humanity, is
instant and certain: the belief of the chief priests